No clarity on reading advice to Wales’ schools

First, it was the turn of the First Minister Eluned Morgan to be grilled in the Senedd chamber on Tuesday.

Today, it was the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Lynne Neagle, who was repeatedly questioned over the way reading is taught to young children.This followed our investigation that revealed that methods debunked by reading scientists decades ago were still being used to teach young children to read all over Wales.We found that primary schools are routinely allowing children to use picture and context cues to tackle unfamiliar words alongside phonics.

We analysed hundreds of inspection reports, school websites and teaching resources, and found that “cueing” methods were present in English medium schools all over Wales.

Plus, their use is praised by school inspectors and encouraged by the Welsh government.Decades ago, cognitive scientists and reading researchers found that teaching children to use picture and context cues can undermine phonics instruction.

It confuses children and can entrench an unproductive approach to decoding unknown words.

Some children taught with this method read the first couple of letters of a word and then guess the rest, a habit that becomes increasingly difficult to break.On Wednesday, Education Secretary Lynne Neagle was grilled by Conservative Shadow Education spokesman Tom Giffard, who asked Ms Neagle why cueing was still being taught in Welsh schools.

Tom Giffard questions Lynne Neagle about the Welsh Labour Party's plans to improve children's reading in Wales, which it says currently ranks as the worst in the United Kingdom

In her response, the Cabinet Secretary said: “We have a clear expectation that all schools will use synthetic phonics to teach reading. I’ve also said we are looking at what more we can do to re-emphasize that expectation.”In a later answer, she said: “Again we are absolutely clear, synthetic phonics is what we expect as the building blocks of reading in Wales.”The problem is, this is simply not true.The Welsh government has never said that all schools should use synthetic phonics to teach children to read.

It is not to be found in the curriculum or any literature by the schools’ inspectorate (Estyn) either.

In fact, in the many times I have asked the Welsh government for a response to this story, a spokeswoman has said only that the teaching of phonics must be “systematic”.

The only reference to synthetic phonics on the Welsh government’s online education portal is regarding ‘Tric a Chlic’, a Welsh language phonics programme for Welsh medium schools. It may be technical, but there is a key difference.

Synthetic phonics instruction involves teaching pupils to sound out individual sounds and blend them together to make words.

Whereas other forms of phonics instruction, like analytic phonics, focus on combining larger sound units together.

Research conducted in Scotland concluded that synthetic phonics was the most effective way to teach all children to read. This led to the UK government mandating the method in England.

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Why does this matter?It's important because either the Cabinet Secretary misspoke, or she is trying to claim that the Welsh government has always had a “clear expectation” that schools should use synthetic phonics to teach reading.

This has never been the case.

As we showed in our report last week, some schools in Wales do use Systematic Synthetic Phonics and don’t use any cueing strategies, but they are in the small minority.On Thursday, a Welsh government spokeswoman told ITV News:“We accept there are places in our guidance where the importance of phonics needs to be more explicit and where wording needs to be clarified around the use of picture cues.” Wednesday's comments by the Cabinet Secretary for Education follow yesterday’s questions to the First Minister about our investigation.

Eluned Morgan was asked by Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth whether our work proved that “current Welsh Government guidance maybe contributing to Wales being the lowest ranked UK nation when it comes to reading”.

Rhun ap Iorwerth raises concerns about the Welsh Labour government's reading plans

In response, the First Minister said that the Cabinet Secretary for Education would “very soon” be setting out the Welsh government advice to teachers across the country and that this would follow the "evidence".

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